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Thursday, 22 December 2016

Barkskins

At one
time, forests, seemingly endless and eternal, covered much of North
America.These forests were occupied by
aboriginal people who understood the symbiotic relationship between humans and
the forest ecosystem.As the Europeans arrived, wood became more
than a source of shelter and heat: it became a commodity.Annie Proulx’ Barkskins is the story of the rise of the lumber industry and the
subsequent decline of the forest.

When
Charles Duquet and Rene Sel arrive in the New World in 1693, they are indentured
servants.They are immediately
confronted with “dark vast forest, inimical wilderness.”They must work for the cruel Claude Trepagny
for years before acquiring land to work as their own.

Rene
Sel works diligently, chopping trees and clearing the forest, waiting for his
promised land.Eventually he marries
Mari, a Micmac woman, producing several children.

Charles
Duquet, however, will not be subject to Trepagny’s whims and disappears into
the forest, eventually joining the fur trade. Duquet shows himself to be a skilled
businessman, driven by ambition.Unlike
those around him, he sees an opportunity in the infinite forest that surrounds
him.

He
starts his own logging business: Duquet and Sons.Over the years it becomes Duke and Sons,
taking the English name to reflect the changing times.Duquet, like other Europeans, has no qualms
about removing the forest; it is an endless and renewable resource.

Rene
Sel’s descendants, part French and part Micmac, lose their Micmac heritage over
time.European ideology becomes the
predominant way of thinking: land is there for the taking and humans must bend
it to our will.It is the white man’s duty to cut down the savage forests and
subjugate its inhabitants.

Fast
forward to today.Sel and Duquet descendants,
still working in the woods, become biologists and activists.Even those in the lumber industry finally
begin to understand that the vast ecosystems of old growth forests can never be
replaced.

Of
course, there is much more to this 700 page story.At its heart, Barkskins is a family saga.Generations of Sels and Duquets are born, grow, marry, have children
(often with each other) and die.It is
also a history, not only of logging but ideology.Proulx explores the idea of man versus
nature, and asks whether the two are indeed in conflict.Perhaps, as the first peoples of this
continent believed, we are one.